Friday Full-Length: Yawning Man, Nomadic Pursuits
Posted in Bootleg Theater on July 26th, 2024 by JJ KoczanWhether or not it actually was for the band themselves — and we’ll get to why in a minute provided I don’t get sidetracked by sweet tonal resonance — it’s arguable that Nomadic Pursuits (review here) was a new beginning for Californian desert rock progenitors Yawning Man. True, it’s their second LP. Prior to its release in 2010 through Cobraside Distribution, the three-piece of guitarist Gary Arce, bassist Mario Lalli and drummer Alfredo Hernandez had offered their debut in 2005’s Rock Formations (discussed here) and companioned that with the Pot Head EP, and the two would be coupled into the compilation Vista Point in 2007, but by the time three years had gone by, all three of those discs were pretty difficult to come by. Nomadic Pursuits brought the instrumentalist trio a new degree of professionalism in terms of sonic character and depth, and presented what was by then a band more than two decades old as having a fresh perspective on the aural niche they helped create. The richness of its sound, whether that’s Lalli‘s fleet low-end in “Sand Whip” and “Far-Off Adventure” or Arce‘s lightly melancholic reverb in “Camel Tow” (also “Camel Tow Too,” later), the circles around which they instrumentalist trio seem to be running around at the culmination of “Sand Whip” or the indie quirk
underlying closer “Laster Arte,” set a balance between serenity and heft that in some crucial ways has been a defining aspect of their work since.
On the most basic level, the band — through various Arce-led incarnations — has done much more after 2010 than they’d done prior. Never ones to shy away from reissues, Yawning Man‘s The Birth of Sol: The Demo Tapes (discussed here) collected early recordings (put on actual cassettes, mind you) from their early days circa 1986 and arrived in 2009, also through Cobraside, but the album, EP, and two comps comprised the entirety of Yawning Man‘s studio output for nearly a quarter-century before Nomadic Pursuits. In the 14 years since, in addition to regular international touring, Arce and company — my understanding gleaned from social media is the band currently features the founding guitarist alongside a recently-stepped-back-in Lalli on bass and likewise-returned drummer Bill Stinson, and that they’re recording with Jason Simon of Dead Meadow guesting in some capacity, but they’re fluid in personnel as well as craft, so don’t quote me on any of that — have done four studio LPs, two live albums, a crucial 2013 split with Fatso Jetson, and overseen a full series of catalog reissues, including for Nomadic Pursuits, through Italian forerunner imprint Heavy Psych Sounds. As regards productivity, they’re much more of a band now than they were when they were starting out as kids jamming in the Californian desert.
Maybe that’s just the way of things. Maybe it takes a while sometimes to realize when you have something special going on and you’re a part of it, or maybe Yawning Man‘s own legacy was bolstered as a result of the on-internet proliferation of the generator-party desert rock narrative, like sandy Southern California in the late ’80s and early ’90s was peopled by roving bands of stoned teenaged marauders worshiping the god of (I believe) Larry Lalli‘s gas powered generator, rogue hillside and defunct skatepark trespass concerts becoming the stuff of hyper-romanticized legend. The sound of freedom in a particularly dirty-footed American heavy-hippie ideal. I don’t know if that’s how it went and the truth of history is it doesn’t matter if that’s what’s become the narrative, but by 2010, Yawning Man were ready to be more than just that band Kyuss covered that one time and to get some fraction of their due as essential to the shape of what their microgenre became. More than just an obscure band people talked about in the past tense.
And what is a nomadic pursuit if not exploration? The 42-minute seven-tracker bears that out in the unfolding of “Far-Off Adventure” — the longest inclusion at 8:28 — as well as the peacefully expansive centerpiece “Blue Foam,” with Arce‘s guitar looped or layered or its-14-years-later-and-I-still-don’t-know-how-it’s-talking-to-itself-across-channels-like-that, or the more rhythmically restless “Ground Swell,” on which Hernandez goes full-on with a jazzy showcase, and “Camel Tow Too,” which takes a different route from the same central progression as the opener and becomes more than a simple reprise for it. Emblematic of their approach generally, there’s more happening across Nomadic Pursuits than simple hit-record-and-go jamming. They’re following a structure, even if it’s not always obvious, or at very least they have some idea in mind of where they’re headed before they get there, however nebulous that might be. But the material throughout is an exploration of atmospheres and moods and different textures and energies, the shifts in pacing and broader activity
level between “Sand Whip” and “Blue Foam” representative of a dynamic that’s only grown more encompassing in the years since.
It would be that aforementioned split with Fatso Jetson — which was issued concurrent to say-hi-to-the-next-generation appearances at Desertfest London 2013 (review here) that also included a set from Yawning Man offshoot Yawning Sons in a landmark one-two-three succession — that pushed further in cementing Yawning Man as a influential and veteran outfit to a new listenership, but I’ll gladly maintain that Nomadic Pursuits is the work that allowed that to happen in the first place, and that its value in listening holds up as more than preface for what they’d do afterward across the 2010s and into the tumultuous first half of this decade. As they approach a 40th anniversary since their inception, Yawning Man are more reality than legend, which considering the legend involved should be read as a compliment, and as both an entity unto themselves in sound and a nexus point around which numerous other Arce-involved projects orbit, whether that’s Yawning Sons, already noted, or Yawning Balch, Big Scenic Nowhere, the forthcoming SoftSun, and so on. Like the joshua, their family tree is an expanding fractal of branches and constant new growth.
I already mentioned they’re working on new recordings. Their latest album, Long Walk of the Navajo (review here), was released last year on Heavy Psych Sounds. If you’re looking for where to head next, that’d be a good stop to make.
In any case, I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.
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As will happen, I had been stuck on trying to find a record with which to close out this week, and it wasn’t until I was taking the dog around the block at quarter-to-six this morning that Nomadic Pursuits came to mind. Part of why it did was because in 2010 when I originally reviewed it, my wife and I were spending a summer month — it was the two of us and the little dog Dio back then — at a cabin in Vermont. She was working on her Ph.D. dissertation. I was writing stories that would become part of my graduate thesis. We’d write early in the day then pop down the hill for a beer — I still drank then — and once or twice a month I popped back down to NJ for band practice like the four-hour ride was no big deal.
Easy to romanticize that trip now. No question life was less complex before we had a kid in ways I can hardly appreciate most of the time from the deeply frustrating trenches of parenthood. But I read the photo caption in that review and found I was bitching about the heat — something I was doing not two weeks ago here as well; I’d like to flatter myself into thinking I’ve become more grateful for what I have, or at least presenting myself that way; this may be and more likely is a delusion; you’d have to ask The Patient Mrs. probably when I’m not in the room — and was reminded that while looking back can often put a sepia-toned spin on one’s experiences, there are ups and downs to everything while you’re living through it.
I write this as my wife and daughter argue in the next room about eating yogurt for breakfast. The kid, picking up from yesterday’s obnoxious without losing the beat of contradictory impulse that makes so many of our days and doings brutal. Now whimpering for something or other. Ugh. Our niece, 15, flew into town yesterday and The Pecan has been turbocharged as a result. This morning’s derailing, not unexpected, has proceeded in pinches, bites, punches, kicks for my wife and I. I look forward to being nostalgic about this era, to whatever else I might be blinded as a result. Maybe in middle age I’m less committed to remembering the reality of a thing. Fine.
I hope I forget being the less preferred parent. I hope I forget the way I get ignored when I ask my kid to do something, or tell her, or do anything other than threaten to end whatever kind of fun she’s having at the moment, or yell at her to finally do it because I feel helpless and like that’s the only way I can actually get her to acknowledge I’m speaking. I hope I forget feeling like a failure all the time, that I failed before I started and I’ve been failing since, here, at home, everywhere. I hope in the years to come I can whitewash all of it into a succession of the positive memories, of her creativity, her intelligence and cleverness, her four-dinensional thinking and the positive manifestations of her excited spirit, all of which are as much a part of her as the rest that is so crushing and overwhelming.
My time is up. Great and safe weekend. Thanks for reading. Brant Bjork Trio plays A38 in Budapest on Monday. Look for a review Tuesday, and I’m halfway through a Worshipper album review that I hope to finish at the nearest opportunity. Until then, then.
FRM.
With new releases by both Yawning Man and Fatso Jetson (both delivered via Cobraside Distribution), 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for fans of true desert rock. As in, rock, from the desert. It doesn’t get much more so than the sweetly toned Yawning Man, whose latest album is the quizzically-titled Nomadic Pursuits. In what’s being billed as a “reunion lineup” boasting guitarist Gary Arce, bassist Mario Lalli (also guitar/vocals in Fatso Jetson) and drummer Alfredo Hernandez, the instrumental trio offer a glimpse into generator-party bliss, ringing out reverb into the open air as many bands try to do and almost nobody pulls off this well.
